any length of reasoning
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [Digimon World DS] He (Yuji) knew he shouldn't be visiting the farm without her there – but that was part of the problem, and part of his relief. She wasn't there. She was off saving the Digital World – doing what all of them should have been doing together.


**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, 21 – write a fic in third person omnipresent narration, and, more importantly, pinch-hitting for the Valentines/White's Day Fic Exchange for Ryoumafan. Don't ask why Yuji and Calumon. It just…happened.

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 **any length of reasoning**

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He knew he shouldn't be visiting the farm without her there – but that was part of the problem, and part of his relief. She wasn't there. She was off saving the Digital World – doing what all of them should have been doing together. What they'd all _started_ doing together, before the rest of them had been neatly arranged into an obstacle cause for her. But she'd cleared them. And now she was battling her way through to the real enemy while the rest of them, brainwashed and defeated and freed, rested at DigiCentral.

But he hated that: sitting without knowing. Without talking. And nobody would talk. Not about anything meaningful. Everyone was tense. Everyone was scared. But none of them could see what was happening in the Digital World. What was happening with _her_.

And this was where he could be the closest, without becoming an obstacle for her again.

'Yuji?'

He jumped, startled, then realised it was just Calumon staring at him. He had a pad with him, and some boxes. Sorting out the feed for the digimon at the farm, it seemed. Or he had been. He was staring at Yuji now.

'I was just…visiting.' It was a poor description, but all he could think of in terms of words. All he could say. And that was a woefully inadequate. He couldn't even explain _why_ he was so desperate to be close to her – or as close as he could get to her. Or why he felt so horrible, when all of them had fallen, similarly, and all of them had been freed.

No, he did know. It was because it was _her_. Because her combination of kindness and spunk had made an impression on him. Because, when they'd first met on Training Peak, he'd known she'd become something special.

What he hadn't known was how she would weigh on his mind since, and in all their subsequent encounters.

If they had any subsequent encounters after this. If she wanted to look at him again, and in the same way: friends, maybe something more. And if he could bear to look at her. See what scars he'd caused and what had been caused by other fellow tamers and which ones from enemies. And, somehow, he knew without looking that the majority would be from tamers.

Calumon looked curiously at him, and then offered him the pad. 'Would you like to help?' he asked. 'The digimon are a little angstier than usual so I've got my hands full. And Kuzuhamon's egg hatched.'

Kuzuhamon. A Raramon when they'd first met. Since then involved in many battles: grown, degraded, and changed. That was the way of all digimon, and the one they begun their life as tamers with most of all. A fluctuating course of digivolutions and degenerations, until one, final, mega form was reached. And Kuzuhamon was perfect. Fierce, loyal but also beautiful and kind. Just like her Tamer.

And the rest of her digimon were perfect too, down to the baby Tanemon he hadn't even met, bounding with anxious energy.

'I'll help,' he agreed. It would take his mind off an agonising wait he wasn't sure he wanted over, and it meant he'd be helpful. Maybe even redeeming.

'Thanks.' And Calumon dashed off over a green blur that Yuji realised was actually the baby Tanemon. Yuji looked at the boxes of DigiFood and hoped his own farm manager had rubbed off on him enough for him to know what to do.

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Calumon was meticulous in his note-keeping, and that was his saving grace. Saving him from making any stupid calculation mistakes anyway – and he was reasonably sure all the digimon at the farm had gotten enough to eat and just that. And by then Calumon seemed to have coaxed Tanemon and a few of the other digimon into doing something more constructive than just running around. By the looks of it, they were trying to teach him or her to read.

Calumon smiled: a wide smile that seemed to cover his entire face. 'Thank you,' he said, and he said it sincerely so that Yuji could believe the little digimon hadn't just been sympathetic towards him. 'The digimon are all on edge, which makes it a little harder to keep things in order.'

'I can imagine.' The Tamers were like that too, but more than once it had been commented on that he was the most tightly wound of them.

Calumon looked at him. 'It'll be alright.'

'Sure.' Yuji snorted to himself, thinking that she was the best and the strongest and she'd come back safe and sound but things still wouldn't be _all_ alright. Unless he got amnesia out of somewhere and _she_ turned out to be an angel and not even remotely human.

'She knows you were all being controlled.' This time Calumon sounded uncomfortable. He was fidgeting. 'And she knows you'd never do anything to hurt her if you could help it.' That part was personal. You – singular. Specific.

Yuji stared. Calumon shifted. 'She talks,' he explained. 'She dropped by before she left.'

After the whole fiasco with the brainwashed tamers, Yuji took that to mean.

Wait…

'She talked about me? Specifically?'

Calumon grinned. This time, the expression was more mischievous. 'Of course. She also said you'd be more hurt than the others.'

Should Calumon even be telling him all that? he wondered. It seemed…personal. A tamer and her digimon. Not something he should be intruding on.

He felt suddenly uncomfortable. Farms weren't as personal as bedrooms, but it was her space and he was here without her knowing…or without having been invited…

'It's alright,' Calumon said suddenly, and kindly. 'She doesn't mind you being here. And you've visited before.'

Yes he had, but with her and while standing next to her the whole time.

'And she'd hoped you'd come back again,' Calumon continued.

Okay, he hadn't known that. 'Really?'

'Of course.' Calumon shrugged. 'You protect her but you don't act like she needs to be protected.' Like he'd done a good job of that. 'And you two talk about things. And agree about things. You'd make a good mate –'

Yuji was glad he wasn't eating or drinking anything at that moment, because he would have choked on it. ' _Mate_?!' he repeated. 'We're just _friends_.' Then his mood dimmed as he realised what he'd said. 'Or…we were…'

'I know.' And Yuji wondered if Calumon really did know or if he thought human courtship was as simple as the digimon version, or if the other digimon had similar ideas. 'But you _would_ make good mates. That's why you're here, isn't it?'

'What? No, I just came because –'

'Because you felt guilty and you wanted to be doing something,' said Calumon softly.

And he'd hit the proverbial nail right on the head.

'You like her.'

And he had to confess, because it was the truth and Calumon had all but wormed it out of him. 'Yes.'

Calumon bounced, satisfied. 'Goodie.' And nothing more was said on that matter, much to Yuji's relief. The question of whether or not _she_ liked him wasn't relevant right then. Not with what stood between them. 'Oh, Tanemon's hungry again.'

He dashed off and Yuji watched him go. That was normalcy. A farm flooded with digimon and a farm manager dashing around and a tamer watching. Except it wasn't. The digimon was anxious. Calumon was anxious. Yuji was anxious – and the tamer who owned the farm wasn't there. Part of the reason why they were all anxious. Anxious in wait. Anxious to see how she acted with them – the other tamers – and with _him_ when she returned. _If_ she returned, his treacherous mind supplied. And anxious to know what she'd think when – if – she did.

He plopped onto the grass and buried his face into his hands. He didn't want to think _if_. He didn't even believe it. She'd taken out the entire force of DigiCentral by herself. Surely she could handle whatever it was that was causing the chaos: that cowardly thing that had used slaves because he didn't want to come into the open himself.

But part of him wondered if it wasn't fear or cowardliness but arrogance instead. That tamers like them, even tamers like _her_ , were beneath the enemy. If she'd just walked into a death –

'Calumon!'

He froze. Stood up. Turned around. Just in time to see her gaping at him.

She was muddied and bloodied but glowing –

And, after a moment in which none of them moved, she hugged him.

'Kiss him too!' Calumon cheered, bouncing up to them.

'Calumon!' This time it was embarrassment. And she pulled away from him and Yuji stumbled back. She wasn't looking at him anymore, but was scolding Calumon, her cheeks as red as her hair and the deep scratch on her temple. She hadn't spared him a comtempt glare or ignored him. She'd hugged him just like she did when one of them went on long missions and came back with good news.

And, this time, it had to be the best news.

He let a smile stretch onto his face. Though things could easily change later. There was too much debris. Guilt and shame and scars and blame…

'See, I told you!'

And Calumon's odd form of cheering up to listen to apparently. So long as he didn't –

'Oh, Yuji said he –'

And there was absolutely no reason why he'd hide anything from his tamer. Yuji hurriedly made his exit, hoping she'd still look him in the eye the next time they met for an arm length of reasons.


End file.
